Genius Sports formally unveiled its “Moment Engine” adtech product at its NewFront event in N.Y. Thursday morning, along with a slate of new advertiser and publisher partners that will gain access to the technology.
Moment Engine is an artificial intelligence-powered solution that combines Genius-licensed competition/fan data with AI models to power targeted ads within broadcasts, streams or digital platforms based on resonant moments during games. Genius had previously announced tie-ups with sell-side advertising platform Magnite and the Pac-12 to use Moment Engine, and now has added deals with DIRECTV Advertising, Equativ, FreeWheel, Index Exchange, OpenX, PubMatic and The Weather Company to do the same.
“The power of Moment Engine is it can be used across lots of different things,” Genius CRO Josh Linforth told SBJ. “It can be used in the broadcast to trigger augmented formats. It can be used on our inventory that we own -- from the Legend acquisition and Covers[.com], it can be used there.
“But more importantly, through our integrations, we now have coverage of 90% of the entire programmatic [advertising] supply chain. If you’re an advertiser and you’ve got an existing deal with [a sports broadcaster], you can take their inventory and you can layer the Moment Engine on top and then make it more efficient.”
The bulk of Genius’ revenue derives from its sports betting technology solutions. But it is investing heavily in its media and advertising business as well, whether through new product roll outs like Moment Engine; the acquisition of companies like fan data firm Sports Innovation Lab and gaming media network Legend; and a recent deal with Publicis Sports to provide data inputs for the latter’s data platform, Epsilon.
In this vein, Genius also recently reached an agreement with Univision to deploy its augmented advertising technology -- used by FanDuel Sports Network and NBC Sports RSN’s for NBA games -- for LigaMX games.
“What we’re seeing now is a momentum shift in terms of the acceptance of that as a format,” Linforth said of Genius’ data-rich augmented ads. He then alluded to a study Genius worked on with audience research lab MediaScience that found that moments of heightened emotional intensity during game days can drive up to a 2x lift in brand recall. “Now that we’ve got some test cases, we’ve got some research, rightsholders are obviously seeing the opportunity to create new inventory.”
